Caring adults can make a difference

Elisha FreemanSpeak Out For Kids

Tuesday

Aug 13, 2013 at 4:30 AM

I can clearly remember the day I left for college thinking that this had been a great place to grow up. As happy as I was to leave this tiny town and go out and experience the world, I knew even then that something special had happened for me here in Hendersonville.

I can clearly remember the day I left for college thinking that this had been a great place to grow up. As happy as I was to leave this tiny town and go out and experience the world, I knew even then that something special had happened for me here in Hendersonville.Raising successful kids takes more than just a single family or school; it takes an entire community. That is exactly what I’d had — a community of caring adults who took interest in me, who knew what I was doing and who gave their time to various aspects of my life. Not every child growing up here has that same experience, but every child who grows up here deserves that experience.What I know today is that those caring adults were the cornerstone of my development and provided me a path to a future. That path led me right back here to this community to live, work and raise my own two children. Those adults were essential to my success.In 2007, the United Agenda for Children gathered our local citizens to discuss children’s issues and to set priorities for children who were living and growing up here. Those efforts have led to an increased number of school nurses in our schools, the addition of three school-based health centers that improve students’ access to health care, mental health services for students on campus in 12 of our county schools, more affordable housing for working families, and continued efforts to help working parents better afford child care.Over the past year, we have worked with our community to gather fresh data and look at the “state of the child” in our community. We clearly see a growing population of young people under age 18 that almost equals the number of seniors who live here. What is alarming, though, is that in 2010 one-quarter (25.3 percent) of children under age 18 in Henderson County lived in poverty. That equals 5,567 children, a number that would fill nine of our local schools!In this past school year, more than half (55.5 percent) of all the children enrolled in grades K-12 in Henderson County Public Schools were enrolled in the free and reduced-price meals program. The number of children receiving food stamps grew by 1,400 between 2011 and 2012, and we can’t ignore the growing awareness of children in our county who are homeless or who are living doubled up with other families because housing is out of their family’s reach.Poverty has a devastating impact on a child’s life. We can help alleviate the impact of poverty for these children when we, as a community, make and deliver five simple promises to every child who lives and grows up here. Those promises — caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, an effective education and opportunities to serve — are supported by three large bodies of research and serve as the framework put forth by the America’s Promise Alliance. Started in 1997 with the support of Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, this alliance challenged America to make children and youths a national priority.These five promises are fundamental resources that all children need in their lives to be successful. The key is that children must experience four of the five promises consistently throughout their lives, and when they do they are far more likely to be academically successful, civically engaged and socially competent regardless of their family income. Issues like access to quality early childhood education, health care and mental health services, along with safe places to live and spend their time, continue to be very real priority issues for children in Henderson County.I think you and I live in a community that can not only make these promises to our kids but can deliver on them. The result would be a community where each new generation can thrive and become the best and brightest regardless of socioeconomic status.Industries would continue to be attracted to the quality of life we promote and protect, and would choose to locate here in the interest of their workforce. Children would grow up to be happy, successful adults who could choose to stay here instead of leaving for other cities to build their careers while they raise their families.

Will you join me in delivering on the promise of caring adults by being one? Every word of encouragement you say to a child, every bit of eye contact you make, every door you open, every minute you invest some of yourself into a young life makes a huge difference.I hope you’ll visit our website, www.5promiseshc.org, to review the data about kids and to learn how you can make a difference. You can start by becoming a Promise Partner. That’s just your commitment to help ensure that these five resources are available in our community.You can also make plans to join us for Speak Out For Kids on March 1, 2014, where we will once again gather as a community to discuss our children and make some plans for how we can deliver these promises in Henderson County.Elisha Freeman is executive director of the Children & Family Resource Center (www.childrenandfamily.org; 828-698-0674).

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